Page 20 of Three Pucks and a Baby

“We love you Bennett!” a woman screeched.

“Thank ya, honey. I love you back.” Throwing a glance over my shoulder, “Don’t we boys?”

“Hell yeah!” they shouted in unison.

I then started strumming the open chords of an oldie but a goodie,Ho, Hey, by the Lumineers. “So, I know y’all know this one, so I want you to sing and clap along with me. All right?”

Shouts and shrieks of approval echoed back at me. Grinning, I said, “Well, all right then, let’s do it!”

As the boys chimed in with the ho’s and the heys, I leaned into the microphone. “I’ve been tryin’ to do it right. I’ve been livin’ a lonely life,” I sang.

For the last two years, I’d been spending my off-season time as the house singer at The Dive. Or I guess I should say as part of the house band, The Sticks. I’d coined the name obviously for hockey as well as the backwoods where I was from.

After accepting a hockey scholarship to Southeastern, I never imagined I’d be singing folk rock outside of the town in Georgia where I grew up. It never ceased to amaze me how much the crowd dug the bluegrass twang I’d been raised on.

Of course, it went without saying that no one expected a guy with an accent like mine to be a hockey player. I’d stumbled into playing on a whim in middle school. Anything to get me out of the house and away from my dad’s church. Somehow it clicked, and I started rising the ranks ahead of kids who had been playing since mite level.

When Southeastern surprisingly came calling, they didn’t have to ask twice. Although I hated the cold, I would’ve taken any offer that got me the hell out of my hometown.

As thoughts of home ricocheted through me, my chest clenched. While I tried focusing on the lyrics I was singing and the chords I was strumming, it was no use. The phone call with my sister right before I took the stage was haunting me.

After running late from hockey practice, I’d just changed out of my hockey warm-ups into my usual stage outfit of holey jeans, a T-shirt, and a backward Braves baseball cap when my phone rang.

Since my bassist was banging on the door to get me onstage, I shouldn’t have answered the phone. But I couldn’t do my baby sister that way. Of course, my heart sank when Hannah’s sniffles echoed on the line. Sucking in a panicked breath, I demanded, “What’s wrong, Hannie-BooBoo?”

It took a few seconds for her to get it out. “BB, Dad’s not letting me come to see you for Fall Break!”

As anger replaced my anxiety, I slammed my fist down on the dressing table. I didn’t feel any physical pain. Instead, I could only focus on the emotional turmoil within. “That fucking bastard!” I growled.

I don’t know why I was surprised. My story was a clichéd tale as old as time in the religious backwoods where I was raised. It had been almost six years since my father had thrown me out of the house at seventeen and disowned me all because he caught me in bed with a guy.

Three months earlier, he’d only given me a stern talk when he walked in on me and a girl. Fornicating, as he called it, was a sin. But fornicating with a guy? That was an abomination, and as the pastor of one of the largest non-denominational churches in our area, he couldn’t have an abomination living in his house. The bastard had conversion camp materials in his church office for fuck’s sake.

But he hadn’t stopped at just throwing me out. He’d forbidden my mother and younger sisters to see me. For years, we snuck around behind his back using burner phones. He’d finally eased up in the last year or so after my mom threatened to leave him if he wouldn’t let her talk to me.

Even though I’d told Hannah I would pay for her plane ticket, she had been babysitting non-stop to fly up to spend her school’s fall break with me. I’d planned to take her road-tripping to see Boston and Cambridge. She was going to write a travel journal for a project for one of her classes.

And as usual, my fucking father was ruining everything.

As she continued to sob, I crooned into the phone, “Shh, it’s okay Hannie-BooBoo.”

“N-No it’s n-not!” she cried.

At the pounding fist on the door, I clamped my eyes shut. Although I wanted to tell Warren to go fuck himself, I knew I had to go. It wasn’t just about letting my bandmates down. I had a contractual obligation, and the last thing I wanted was to piss off my boss.

“Listen, I gotta call you back, okay? They’re calling me to get on stage.”

My comment made Hannah wail louder. “I wanted to see you perform.”

I snorted to try and lighten the mood. “Like you’ve never heard me sing before.”

“Not like that.”

“You couldn’t have even if Dad had allowed you to come, Hannie-BooBoo. You’re not twenty-one.”

My response made her cry even harder. “I promise I’ll make this right. Wewillsee each other. Okay?”

A few seconds passed. “Okay.”

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